Irish Examiner view: Long fight for justice

Nóra Quoirin. The mother of the French-Irish teenager whose body was found near a Malaysian resort, has welcomed the decision by a Malaysian court to overturn an inquest verdict of "misadventure" in her death.

There was a shred of good news yesterday for the parents of Nóra Quoirin, the French-Irish teenager who disappeared from a resort outside Kuala Lumper in 2019. A Malaysian court’s decision to overturn an inquest verdict of “misadventure” and replace it with an “open ruling” was, they said, an incredibly important step in their quest for justice.

“An element of justice has been served,” said Nóra’s mother, Meabh. That must offer a grain of comfort in the unspeakably difficult journey the family has faced since Nóra’s body was discovered 10 days after she disappeared from a resort outside Kuala Lumpur in 2019.

The family has always maintained that Nóra, a 15-year-old with learning difficulties, would never have left the resort on her own. The initial verdict indicated her death was accidental, but the new ruling suggests there are still questions to be answered, which leaves open the possibility of criminal involvement. The family still believes Nóra disappeared in suspicious circumstances.

Meabh Quoirin also welcomed the court magistrate’s willingness to take the time to recognise who Nóra was as a person. That willingness to put the victim at the centre of an investigation shows, once again, how a different kind of justice can be achieved when you do that. This case also shows the daily fight many families have to face on their long, slow journeys to get that justice.